A Picnic With Strangers

I have been a Freshour for nearly 9 years now and and, up until this weekend, considered myself well-versed in Jeff's side of the family tree. So when we were asked to attend a 4th of July picnic in Tennessee a few months ago, we did not hesitate to send in our RSVP. We love going to Knoxville and our last trip there was about two years ago, so we were excited to see:

Granddaddy, and Mammaw, and Babu, and Bibi, and Brother Greg, and his girlfriend Alex, and Aunt Sarah, and her boyfriend Bob (boyfriend?), and Cousin Patrick, and Cousin Shannon, and her husband John, and their children Thomas, Chase, and Sarah Renee, and Cousin Chris, and his wife Paige, and their children Drew and Reese, and Cousin Rachel, and her husband Mark, and their children Josh, Jayden and Jordan, and Aunt Susie and her husband Steve, and their son Ian, and Uncle David, and his wife Delia.

What say I just save myself 1,000 words with a picture.

Oh. It's too late you say?

As a group, we belong to this guy. His name is Granddaddy. He also goes by J.V. which is short for Jefferson Vance. It's a stately name for a stately fellow.

Now this is where our 4th of July picnic gets really interesting. When we got to the picnic site, we found these people seemingly squatting at our reserved site.

They seemed nice, so we let them stay. But they were soon joined by these people:And finally, by these people - all trying to encroach on our glazed ham, fried chicken, and macaroni salad!

Fortunately, they came bearing coolers, or we would have turned them away. All kidding aside, I'm sure they were as surprised to see Jeff and I as we were to see them. We thought we had signed up to come to a little ole BBQ with the cousins, not an extended Freshour Family Reunion.

That said, this is a genealogical review of the Freshour family tree as I understand it post picnic.

Apparently, Granddaddy has some siblings.

He has a sister named Jessie.



And a brother named Clarence. Clarence is sitting with a woman by the name of Jean. I was fairly certain Jean was Clarence's wife...


until I saw this picture of Clarence holding hands with some other woman. I think her name is Nellie. Or Nelly? But whether Nellie/Nelly is his wife or sister I do not know. And if Nellie/Nelly is his wife, then who is Jean?


That concludes the genealogy portion of this post. I would have spent more time trying to figure it all out, but I was a little busy trying to keep track of these Freshours:




Which can be a real challenge when you have to cut them from a herd of 70+ Freshours you don't know from the Smiths down the street.

All in all, it was a lovely day. The weather was beautiful, the location ideal, the food plentiful. It was just the company that was, well, a bit strange.